


Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer

by VigilantePond



Category: Doctor Who RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Christmas, F/M, One Shot, Rivalry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-22
Updated: 2015-12-22
Packaged: 2018-05-08 07:44:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5489216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VigilantePond/pseuds/VigilantePond
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Matt and Karen are rival neighbours who compete for the annual neighbourhood Christmas contest for the best decorated house, then things begin to go missing... <br/>Smillan AU Christmas oneshot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer

_Rudolph the red nosed reindeer_

_Had a very shiny nose_

_And if you ever saw him_

_You would even say it glows_

_Great, an inflatable reindeer ten times the size of my snowman,_ Karen thought. It even came with a bloody red blinking nose (no pun intended there). Her neighbor Matt Smith had put the inflatable reindeer on the rooftop, where it would be visible from miles away. At 5’11, Karen was considered tall, but not tall enough to put anything onto her rooftop… not since  _someone_ stole her ladder. It happened not too long ago, one second she was hanging Christmas lights on the back door, and the next, her ladder disappeared. She deduced that it must have been Matt freakin Smith.

"Oi, Gillan! Nice snowman!" Matt mocked from across his lawn. Her inflatable Snowman was a mere ant compared to his colossal reindeer.

"Shut up, Matthew. I'm going to call the cops and report you for theft! I _know_ you stole my ladder." Karen yelled.

Matt snorted," You haven't got any proof! Besides, then I'll have to tell them _you_ stole my candy cane!"

Karen’s eyebrows furrowed in fury. How dare he accuse her of stealing from him? Like she'd ever want to touch his decorations. "I don't know what the hell you're talking about!" she barked in return.

"Bitch!"

Karen ignored him and stepped back to admire her house. Every year she and her neighbour Matt would have the most extravagant decorations, and they'd always compete with each other. The neighbourhood gave a prize to the best decorated house each year, usually a gift card of some sort. It didn't matter what the prize was, Matt and Karen only cared about the feeling of winning. Nobody else in the neighbourhood even bothered to enter at this point, because everybody knew the winner would be either Matt or Karen. In fact, the neighbours around all called it “The Famous Smith-Gillan Battle”. They've both won twice, so this year would be the tie-breaker.

Short candy canes bordered Karen’s lawn in neat rows, and blinking Christmas lights hung from the roof and around every tree and bush in her yard -- horizontally _,_ vertically and diagonally. Lights strung across the second story spelled out "MERRY CHRISTMAS", but the "CHRISTMAS" part had fallen and she couldn't fix it because she didn't have her ladder. A penetrating blizzard took place inside her giant snowglobe, guarded by a friendly inflatable Snowman. If you listened carefully enough, you could hear the high pitched whistle of the choo-choo train which ran the perimeter of her garden. Wreathes were displayed on every door, and she even had a hologram of Santa jumping from window to window. She had three dancing Santas on the other side, opposite the snowman and the snowglobe. One of her favourite new additions was the artificial pond, with automatic figures ice skating on the surface. "I'm missing something," she repeatedly murmured to herself under her breath. She dashed back inside her house and took out one last thing from the box. A mistletoe. She had no idea why she had it there, but it seemed to be the perfect missing piece to her display. She hung the mistletoe on the front door frame, and stepped back to admire her house. Now the dynamics were balanced, and everything was  _perfect_.

Meanwhile, Matt was tying down the last rope to secure the Rudolph on his roof. The cold winter wind wrecked his display last night, knocking down the reindeer and crashed into his plastic penguins. He snuck a quick peek over at his neighbour Karen's decorations. Pretty impressive, he had to admit. Karen was standing in front of her house with a hand on her hip, one of her incredible long legs bent, her head cocked slightly and she was furiously picking at her lips the way she always did when deep in thought.  _Shit_ , Matt thought. Why did his Christmas-decoration-rival have to be so cute?  _Damn it Matt, focus_  he told himself. He tore his gaze away from Karen and started picking up his penguins.  _This penguin has a red plaid scarf. Karen owns a red plaid scarf_ , Matt thought. Then, he groaned because he caught himself thinking of her, again. It was impossible to get her out of his head.

The next morning, Matt was about to go to his lawn to perform his daily routine of admiring his Christmas decorations. Right as he opened the front door, he saw Karen standing on his porch and he screamed.  _Holy crap am I seeing things now?_ Matt thought he'd gone mad. First he was always thinking of her now he was seeing her everywhere.

"Good morning," Karen said nonchalantly. So she was real. She was really there.

"Blimey." Matt mumbled. "What do you want?"

Karen rolled her eyes, and produced a gigantic red and green striped candy cane from behind her back.

"Ha, you  _did_ steal my candy cane! You felt guilty didn't you!" Matt shouted, doing a triumphant victory dance on his doorstep.

Karen made a frusturated noise. "Oh my god,  _no_. I found this lying beside the rubbish bin! I told you, I didn't take it! Someone else did! And you know what else? My  _ladder_ was also there. Somebody's screwing with us!"

"Why would it be in the rubbish bin? If you’re going to lie, at least make it believable" Matt scoffed.

" _I don't know_ , okay? But it wasn't me. Believe me. We've been competing at this for what, 4 years now? We've always played fair and square, so why would I start cheating now? Why would you? None of this makes sense!" Karen started babbling. Matt hated seeing her face look like this, all concerned, worried and... hurt. He hurt her. Indirectly. He wanted to hug her.

Matt sighed. "I believe you," he said. After an awkward pause, he added, "Your house is really beautiful.”   _Like you,_  he wanted to say.

"Thank you," Karen smiled.

"I can help you with the lights, if you want," Matt offered, pointing to the dangling "CHRISTMAS".

Karen smiled. "Okay. Thanks." They walked in continued awkward silence over to Karen's lawn, and then Matt held the ladder for Karen while she fixed the lights, she insisted on doing that part herself.

"I didn't steal your ladder you know that, right?" he said.

Karen grinned," I know."

After they were finished, Karen offered for him to come in for tea.

"Yeah, sure," Matt said. They walked up her front steps, and then Karen suddenly came to an abrupt halt. She got to her door and spotted the clump of green leaves and white berries hanging there.  _Shit_.  _Shit shit shit shit_. She completely forgot about that being there. Matt must have noticed it too, because he murmured "mistletoe." Matt hesitated, and then he clumsily cupped her face with one hand and kissed her on the lips. It wasn't like he snogged her or anything, it was more like a peck on the lips. Matt enjoyed every millisecond of that. Her lips were warm despite the freezing weather outside, and they were oh, so soft. Karen stood there with her eyes wide and with a slightly shocked expression, even though she secretly quite enjoyed that.

"Let's - em, go inside," she said awkwardly, and then made two cups of tea. They sat down in her living room where she was facing the window that had the view to Matt's house.

"Karen- I just wanted to say that I think I've-" Matt began, but he was interrupted by Karen jumping up from her armchair and screaming.

"Kaz? What is it?" he asked. She pointed out the window, where his Rudolph on the roof came crashing down. Something was also dragging it away from his lawn. Matt and Karen immediately sprinted after the reindeer. They were finally going to catch who the real thief was.

"Stop right there you-" Karen hollered. She couldn't finish her sentence. "You-you... you deer." She stopped in her tracks, there it was, in front of her. A deer was dragging Matt's inflatable Reindeer.

"Blimey," Matt mumbled. "It was this deer all along? This deer was stealing our stuff?"

Matt and Karen exchanged a look, and then burst out laughing. They had no idea how a deer got here, what it was doing here, or what they should do with it, but that didn't seem to be the issue for them.

“Oh what the hell. It’s Christmas,” Karen laughed. This time it was her turn to initiate the kiss, and she anticipated for it to last longer than the last one.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this on Wattpad last year, but I edited and changed some things and now it is here!


End file.
